What Is Affiliate Marketing?

What Is Affiliate Marketing & How Does It Actually Work?

For someone who’s never heard about affiliate marketing then this would be the first question you would probably be asking..

This whole course is for everyone, no matter what level of understanding you have and hopefully I can explain it in a way that you can fully understand to allow you to move forward knowing exactly how everything works.

When people ask me what affiliate marketing is, I try and explain it in the most simplest way I know so it’s easy to understand.

This for me can sometimes be hard because I’ve been doing this for so long that I forget there are people who have never heard of the term affiliate or even know you can make money online in the first place.

Here is what I tell them:

“Affiliate marketing is promoting other peoples “stuff”, and receiving a commission in return for some kind of performance based action.”

Let me drill down on this a little further…

The performance based action could be:

• A sale you refer.
• A lead you refer.
• When someone click on an advert.
• When someone installs a program, toolbar or extension.
• When someone enters their contact information or zip code.
• When a visitor fills out a survey or questionnaire.

So basically, you’re getting paid for recommending other peoples stuff.

The Process of Affiliate Marketing

Product owners and companies big and small will often run an “affiliate program” because it’s a great way of spreading the word about their products and services.

So, when you become an affiliate of one of these companies you normally sign up to their affiliate program and each will have their own terms and conditions, commission structures and criteria for approving you as an affiliate.

Here’s a terrible drawing I quickly done to try and explain the whole process..

To explain what’s in the diagram:

Company has products and are willing to pay you for promoting and recommending their products.

If a visitor comes to your website and clicks on a special affiliate link that the company gives you to use for promoting their products and that visitor turns into a paying customer the company will pay you a percentage of the sale price or a set commission.

Now, just about anyone can become an affiliate but some companies will have different criteria’s that you need to meet before you can be accepted.

Some affiliate programs will automatically approve you which is great because you can get started straight away.

Okay, so hopefully you have a basic understanding of what affiliate marketing is.

I will be going into more detail about affiliate programs, affiliate networks, commission structures and how they pay you as their affiliate.

Before we get into that, it’s super important to learn what type of mindset you need to have, and what you can expect as an affiliate marketer which leads me to the next episode (Affiliate Mindset & What You Need To Know)

Still having trouble?

If you’re still finding it hard to understand the meaning of affiliate marketing and how it all works then please feel free to ask your questions in the group.

I’m more than happy to help and if you’re not yet a member of the Affiliate Marketing Ninjas Facebook group then now is the time to join and start asking those questions..

Remember..The only silly question is the one you don’t ask 😉